Fishing Report for Guntersville 1/31/16

Tournament season is upon us. After this past weekend, every Saturday from now until, well, forever, Guntersville will be packed with tournament fishermen.

I admit that I am no exception that that. Except, of course, I am not good enough to fish any large tournament trails, benefit tournaments, or essentially any tournament who has an entry fee greater than, say, $30.

But, I do have club tournaments coming up and I would like to make at least a respectable appearance on Guntersville before I try and make up ground on every other lake that my clubs fish.

The best way to get better is time on the water. For me, I can up the ante by fishing in a tournament, even if I have no chance to win, I at least make myself get up on frigid Saturday mornings and put myself in the right frame of mind.

So, Josh and I headed to fish the The Bait Tackle and Grill at Goosepond Wildcat. This would be the last wildcat from Goose Pond and only the second that I have fished. You can read about how we didn't catch any fish at the link below.

We had spent the previous tournament inside Roseberry and caught our lone fish with a jerkbait off a dock. We knew of at least one good spot that we wanted to check. Beforehand, we had decided that we would only spend about an hour inside Roseberry before we headed out. Additionally, my friend Brad would be fishing, as would my friend John. We hope to put together some semblance of a pattern between the three boats.

We ran into Roseberry only to find a boat fishing exactly where we wanted to fish, so we had to be content on fishing the channel side of a pocket. We did managed to catch two keeper fish in the first hour, which we considered a good start. Word was that any fish caught early was a bonus. However, the fish were caught 200 yards apart and on different baits (one on a XR50 in Rayburn Red and the other on a chatterbait.) Without that making much of a pattern, we decided to move out of Roseberry completely.

We ran into Brad, who hadn't had a hit.

By lunch, we hadn't had another bite, nor had Brad. John and his partner had caught one fish.

We worked the mid-lake over efficiently, covering hundreds of yards at a time with select fast moving baits. We slowed down only when we found green emerging grass.

Alas, we didn't find any more fish.

Not unexpectedly, several boats did. As typical this time of year, around five boats found a good limit. Another couple of boats would find a small limit and everyone else had ones and twos. There were some pigs caught including an 8.44. The winning sack was 24 pounds.

We were boat 30 and there were a lot more boats behind us.

Of the three boats, three fish were caught, total, with the largest being around three pounds.

We surmised that the winning sacks came from down river, perhaps beyond the big swing towards Guntersville, as we didn't see but a handful of boats all day, though by day's end, there were a ton in the back of North Sauty, but I think that had more to do with the fact that it was 30 minutes from weight in and the wind was nonexistent in north Sauty,

In conclusion, it isn't a surprised that we didn't catch fish. We know what baits to throw and how to work them, but when the fish are lethargic in the 42 degree water, you have to be around them....sometimes on top of them....to get bites. If you aren't around them, you aren't going to get bit. Saturday, we weren't around them, try as we might.

Still, sucks to get skull drug, but I have to remember that these dudes are good....and sometimes great....fishermen.

My advice to you would be to throw lipless cranks, square bills, and chatterbaits and don't stop trolling until you bag a 3+ pound fish, then anchor down.